On July 28, at a public hearing in Sacramento, California, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau released an outline of new rules targeting third-party debt-collection operations. The new rules seek to curb “excessive or disruptive” communication by restricting collectors from calling debtors numerous times a day, require debt collection companies to have “more and better
On July 26, a Northern District of California judge certified a class of applicants who claimed that S2Verify, a background check company, included obsolete criminal information on their background reports in violation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act. In certifying the class, the Court found that the alleged harm was sufficient under the U.S. Supreme
In Long v. Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation, the named plaintiffs applied for positions as bus operators with the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (“SEPTA”). SEPTA allegedly extended each of the plaintiffs a conditional offer of employment, which was contingent upon a background check. In each instance, the plaintiffs disclosed the existence of a drug conviction to
On May 16, the Supreme Court in Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins found that the Ninth Circuit had not adequately addressed whether the named plaintiff had sufficiently alleged a “concrete” injury in connection with his putative FCRA class action against Spokeo, Inc. In Spokeo, the plaintiff (Robins) sued the “people search engine” for alleged violations of
Microsoft prevailed in its appeal to the Second Circuit from an order denying its motion to quash a warrant seeking a Microsoft user’s email stored on the company’s servers in Ireland. The ruling sets important precedent limiting the extraterritorial reach of the federal government in seeking to compel disclosure of private company data under the
In a letter dated July 21, Senators Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Jeffrey Merkley (D-Ore.), on behalf of the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs (the “Committee”), asked the heads of several federal agencies to provide the Committee with information concerning their understanding of the role of fintech in the consumer financial services
On July 14, the Federal Trade Commission announced that it had entered into a final consent order with Ohio auto dealers Progressive Chevrolet Company and Progressive Motors Inc. (collectively, the “Progressive Dealers”), which the FTC had “charged with deceiving consumers by using advertising that touted low monthly car lease payments and down payments but failed
On July 19, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau reached a $107 million settlement agreement with three individuals who conspired with World Law Group to swindle millions of dollars from consumers in a debt-relief scheme.
In August 2015, the CFPB brought suit in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida against several defendants, including
Most organizations understand the importance of timely implementing software updates and patches. However, open platforms have permitted a level of customization such that a patch in one application may have unintended consequences in other parts of the overall system architecture, including customization of the software being updated. A good example is the recent Microsoft security
The FTC issued warning letters to 28 companies that allegedly advertised participation in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperative Cross-Border Privacy Rules system (“APEC CBPRs”), but had not received the requisite certification. A company seeking to participate in the CBPR system must first have its compliance established by an APEC-recognized accountability agent.
The APEC CBPRs is a